Energy retrofit and passive cooling: overheating and air quality in primary schools

While building stock modelling has been used previously to investigate the space heating demand implications of national energy efficiency retrofitting, there are also implications for indoor overheating and air quality, particularly in schools, with highly intermittent occupancy patterns. This paper assesses indoor overheating risk and air quality within an English classroom stock model containing 111 archetypes, based on the analysis of the nationwide Property Data Survey Programme (PDSP) containing 9629 primary school buildings in England. Metrics for indoor temperatures, heating demand and concentrations of three contaminants (CO₂, NO₂, PM_2.5) were estimated in naturally ventilated classrooms, while exploring future climate projections, retrofit and overheating mitigation scenarios to analyse school stock resilience. Classrooms with a south-east orientation experience around four to six times the overheating-hours compared with those with a northern orientation. Post-1976 archetypes are most susceptible to overheating, indicative of the conflict between better insulated and airtight classrooms and overheating prevention. A range of retrofit and passive cooling measures can mitigate against overheating alone, although mechanically driven cooling and filtration may be required towards the 2080s. While no single measure predicted universally positive effects for building performance, night ventilation and overhangs were found to be particularly effective passive overheating mitigation methods across the school stock.